Sunday, July 18, 2010

8"When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is set before you.9Heal the sick who are there and tell them, 'The kingdom of God is near you.'10But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say,11'Even the dust of your town that sticks to our feet we wipe off against you. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God is near.'12I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town.

This was the scripture reading at the Celtic service last night. It made me feel better.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

I hurt. If I lie in bed and don't move I don't hurt. Getting rid of this nausea is proving difficult though. Maybe I just need an easy weekend. Let's hope that'll make me feel better.

After talking more with David I feel even more confused. Of course, half my concerns don't even apply by the time I talk to him. Because somehow in a day or two things have changed, or something. Who knows. Our 1-2-3-5-10 year plan doesn't go past 3. That doesn't work for me. I recognize that anything that far advance in subject to major changes, but the point is to have a plan. And he just hasn't been online often enough or long enough to satisfy my need to figure this out. I don't know if I even feel like thinking today though.

I'm putting away baby stuff now. Then maybe a nap. Then the Celtic service. That's about all I'm up for today. Even though I'm feeling better.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

It's officially impossible to try to make solid life plans while a family member is in the service. I'm really looking forward to going back to school. Really, really looking forward to it. I'm finding that a baby born in November is extremely inconvenient to going to school though, because it's a month before finals when you don't have any real time to be missing large expanses of class. If I were in Colorado already it might be possible for me to start a full semester class in January, however from a practical standpoint I don't think it's likely that I can move back there in time to start classes, having had abdominal surgery just a month prior, a two-month old in tow without a built-in support network, and coming back to a house that needs a serious scrubbing from top to bottom, half of its contents thrown out, and then a lot of handywork done. I'd like to think that it's possible, but it would be a stretch, and one done without much outside help. One or both of my parents might be able to come help me settle in, but then I'm left with two friends in the Springs. The rest of my friends and support are going to have to be built from the ground up. There are some late start classes that I could enroll in after David gets back, so I'm planning on applying to the school either way, just to keep my options open. But next semester doesn't look promising.

Then there's this new issue of where I am going to graduate from. At the point I don't know. I know that David will be home in early 2011 and one of two things will happen. Either he will stay at Carson to complete a deployment to Afghanistan in 2012 or he will be PCS'd to Ft. Hood to start training on the new ERMP MQ-1C UAV. No, I didn't realize that there was a potential for an "or" there either. If he stays at Carson then college is fairly straightforward. I need to work out my debt with UCCS so I can go back to school there and start taking classes towards the degree I will eventually earn there. I would have enough time to complete my degree in Colorado before they potentially PCS'd us elsewhere after his Afghanistan deployment. If he goes to Ft. Hood we are facing a lot of complications. For starters, moving could require us to fork over $8,000 to the IRS. That would be the tax credit we received when we bought our house last October. We are supposed to live in the house for three whole years to earn that credit, and if we sell, or even lease, before then, we might have to pay it all back. I don't know about you, but $8,000 is a lot of money. That's a really big incentive to stay the hell put. Also, Ft. Hood is two and a half hours away from any major Texas city. Actually, it's about two and a half hours away from three of them. Three big cities with good schools and they are just far enough away to be inaccessible. But this could potentially be a really good thing for David's career. This is the new UAV, who knows where or when we will be fighting next, and being on the up and coming end of training is nothing but beneficial. I imagine that David is going to be career army, and therefore our long term plans have to include a certainly inevitability of inconvenience. If this is what could set him up for being more than just another UAV pilot turned flight instructor because there was nowhere else for him to go, I'd like to expound upon that opportunity. Even if it means going to *shudder* Texas.

Now David and I have yet to finish our conversation on this topic. He had to go to work. So I don't know everything that I would like to know. I can only imagine that he would like the opportunity to go to Texas, both because this new UAV is pretty kick-ass and because he brought it up at all. If he was completely unenthused about the possibility of going to Texas (I'm pretty sure this is a submit your candidacy kind of program) he wouldn't have said anything about it. And I am of course keenly interested in what kind of an opportunity this job actually is. If this is the it, if this is the split in the career track that makes the difference between standard and exceptional, than we need to go to Texas, and I'm not going to keep that from happening. Maybe I'm making too much of the opportunity though, and nothing would really be that different. In which case the potential costs of the physical move are severe. It has to be worth it. That's why it merited my first blog since January. Because I don't wanna go! I'm really hoping that my conversation with David when he gets off work later will answer some of my questions. That's the other thing about the military. I know that some of my questions don't have answers because he just doesn't know yet. For example, I could give Ft. Hood the ok and then they could not send him there. However, that would just mean that he'd be set for a 2012 deployment and I'd be back on track being able to graduate in Colorado.

It all comes down to how big a deal this really is. And I won't know until later. I just hadn't thought of any of this until now.